মুক্তাঙ্গন-এ উপরোক্ত শিরোনামের নিয়মিত এই সিরিজটিতে থাকছে দেশী বিদেশী পত্রপত্রিকা, ব্লগ ও গবেষণাপত্র থেকে পাঠক সুপারিশকৃত ওয়েবলিন্কের তালিকা। কী ধরণের বিষয়বস্তুর উপর লিন্ক সুপারিশ করা যাবে তার কোনো নির্দিষ্ট নিয়ম, মানদণ্ড বা সময়কাল নেই। পুরো ইন্টারনেট থেকে যা কিছু গুরত্বপূর্ণ, জরুরি, মজার বা আগ্রহোদ্দীপক মনে করবেন পাঠকরা, তা-ই তাঁরা মন্তব্য আকারে উল্লেখ করতে পারেন এখানে। ধন্যবাদ।
আজকের লিন্ক
এখানে থাকছে দেশী বিদেশী পত্রপত্রিকা, ব্লগ ও গবেষণাপত্র থেকে পাঠক সুপারিশকৃত ওয়েবলিন্কের তালিকা। পুরো ইন্টারনেট থেকে যা কিছু গুরত্বপূর্ণ, জরুরি, মজার বা আগ্রহোদ্দীপক মনে করবেন পাঠকরা, তা-ই সুপারিশ করুন এখানে। ধন্যবাদ।
৪ comments
মাসুদ করিম - ৪ আগস্ট ২০২৩ (৮:২৫ পূর্বাহ্ণ)
S Alam’s Aladdin’s lamp
https://www.thedailystar.net/news/investigative-stories/news/s-alams-aladdins-lamp-3385676
S Alam Group owner Mohammed Saiful Alam has built a business empire in Singapore worth at least about USD 1 billion, although there is no record of him taking any permission from Bangladesh Bank (BB) to invest or transfer any funds abroad, an investigation by The Daily Star has found.
The Bangladesh central bank has so far allowed 17 companies to invest outside the country, and this Chattogram-based business giant is not on that list. Yet in Singapore, Alam bought at least two hotels, two homes, one retail space, and other properties over the last one decade, all the while seeking to remove his name from the paper trails, documents show.
As of January 10, 2023, the central bank has cleared roughly about USD 40.15 million to be invested abroad globally, a BB document shows. The figure is 10 times less than what Alam has spent just to buy two hotels and one retail space – worth over USD 411.8 million – in Singapore since 2009.
The BB document also shows that just over USD 107,000 have so far been sent to Singapore legally by a number of companies, and none of them is owned by Alam.
The Daily Star contacted Bangladesh Bank in writing for comments on S Alam’s investment abroad, but the Bank did not give any official response.
Basic information about overseas investment is not officially classified. Yet it appears to be regarded as a top secret by the regulatory bank.
However, three highly-placed sources within the central bank having direct knowledge of the matter confirmed that Alam never took permission from them. All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity but confirmed the authenticity of the BB document that we have obtained.
“You can rest assured that S Alam has never taken our permission to send money abroad,” one of them told The Daily Star, which was separately corroborated by the two other sources.
Bangladesh’s Money Laundering Prevention Act 2012 prohibits offshore investments without clearance from the central bank. It is punishable by up to 12 years of imprisonment and a fine twice the amount sent out.
S Alam Group was founded by Alam in 1985, and has since risen to become one of Bangladesh’s largest conglomerates.
His business interests range from commodity trade to fishing, building materials to real estate, textiles to media, intercity buses to shipping, and power and energy to banking and insurance.
The Daily Star contacted Saiful Alam in writing twice – on July 6 and on July 23 – to comment on our findings. We sent Alam a set of elaborate questions detailing our findings about his source of funding and investments abroad, requesting him to give his version. He responded through his lawyers, A Hossain & Associates, both times, saying he would not make any comment unless we shared the full report with him before publication, which is not a journalistic practice.
Hopscotching havens
This newspaper is in possession of documents that reveal parts of the web of the offshore business Alam has built with his wife Farzana Parveen. Our investigation has tracked down investments linked to Alam and his wife in Singapore, British Virgin Islands and Cyprus.
A small Mediterranean nation, Cyprus launched its Golden Passport programme in 2007. Under the scheme, wealthy foreigners were offered Cypriot citizenship in exchange of investments of about €2 million (USD 2.5 million) in their real estate, along with another €200,000 in contributions to the Cypriot government’s research and land development fund, according to a number of international business consultancy firms.
Two years later, on August 27, 2009, Saiful Alam and Farzana Parveen founded Canali Logistics Pte Ltd in Singapore, listing themselves as Cypriot citizens and residents of Singapore, according to the company profile obtained from Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA).
The company’s issued and paid-up share capital was worth USD 22.34 million (30 million Singaporean dollars) at the time. Alam and his wife were the sole shareholders, with Alam controlling 70 percent of the 30 million shares and his wife the rest 30 percent.
Non-Singaporeans can get residence permit if they invest in Singapore. Singapore is home to some of the world’s top businesses, including some Bangladeshi conglomerates. According to the offshore leaks database created by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, nearly 6,000 shell companies are linked to Singapore.
Alam and his wife are also linked to an offshore shell company, Peacock Property Ltd, in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). More than 17,000km away from Singapore, BVI is a tax haven with no income, corporate, or capital gains tax.
Alam also bought a company – ACLARE Investment Ltd – in 2016 in Cyprus, another tax haven. The company was later renamed ACLARE International, according to documents obtained from Cyprus’ Department of Register of Companies and Official Receiver.
“This is a clear example of illicit financial transfer, especially if no credible evidence is available that payments made for the Golden Passport, purchase of assets and investments made out of the country, including offshore companies in tax havens came from legitimate foreign income,” said Dr Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh.
Former Bangladesh Bank governor Dr Salehuddin Ahmed said there are two legal ways to send money abroad for investment or trade by businesses.
One is the Exporters’ Retention Quota (ERQ), which is a share of the forex remittance earned by an exporter that they are allowed to retain “only for imports and repayment of foreign loan of the exporters or their subsidiaries and sister concerns” as per BB rules.
The other method, Dr Ahmed explained, would be taking permission from the BB to invest a portion of this ERQ abroad.
“But this does not mean they can open a wholly different entity and do business there. It could be a subsidiary. Bangladesh Bank has allowed only a handful of companies to do this [invest abroad],” he said, without giving any names.
The Gold Rush
Five years after its launch, Alam’s Canali Logistics proceeded to buy a 328-room hotel – Hotel Grand Chancellor Pte Ltd – in Singapore’s “Little India” for about USD 177 million, according to a circular sent by the hotel’s previous owners to its shareholders and the Singapore Securities Exchange on August 26, 2014.
“Under the SPA [sales and purchase agreement], it is provided that the Consideration [the contract value] will be paid in cash in various instalments,” the circular reads, adding that Canali has already “paid S$18.6 million (about USD 14m) inclusive of the initial deposit and the balance deposit upon execution of and pursuant to the terms of the agreement.”
A Singaporean law firm represented the hotel in the deal.
Filings made by Hotel Grand Chancellor with ACRA, the Singaporean regulatory authority, said its assets were worth USD 314 million at the end of 2021, with a yearly revenue of roughly about USD 7.4 million.
The hotel’s company was renamed Grand Imperial Hotel Pte Ltd a year after the purchase, and now operates under the brand name of Hilton Garden Inn Serangoon at the heart of Singapore.
In 2016, Canali bought a 27,000 square feet commercial space in Singapore’s 19-storey Centrium Square for USD 100.53 million, according to The Business Times, a Singaporean newspaper.
A year after this acquisition, Canali Logistics changed its name to Wilkinson International Pte Ltd, whose assets were worth nearly USD 1 billion (Tk 10,000 crore) in 2021. At the time of writing this report, the Singaporean authorities did not have the 2022 files.
While the corporation purchased one property after another, its three-year annual turnover did not reveal that it made as much money as it spent.
Wilkinson’s financial statements show its annual sales revenue never topped USD 78 million between 2019 and 2021. It was USD 35 million in 2020 and USD 36 million in 2019.
Yet between 2019 and 2021, the company spent at least USD 567 million in investments, which is several times the amount it earned, Wilkinson’s financial statements show.
To balance this, the company took USD 458 million in financing during this period.
While financing could mean both equity and borrowing, analysts looking at the statements noted that since Alam and his wife were the sole shareholders at least until the end of 2020, this amount would potentially have to be bank borrowings or cash loans, and not equity.
The smokescreen
This massive Singaporean business operations run behind the façade of an address that appears to exist only on paper.
The Daily Star sent a source to the registered address of Wilkinson who looked through the business directory in the lobby of the Ocean Financial Centre on Collyer Quay Road, the official address of Wilkinson. Wilkinson International was not on the directory. But the law firm that was involved in the company’s hotel deal was found at the same address.
According to Singapore’s open government data portal accessed by The Daily Star in June 2023, over 500 shell companies ran their operations from that building, although some of them are no longer in operation.
Alam and his wife resigned as directors from Wilkinson on December 16, 2020, and transferred ownership to an offshore entity, Peacock Property Holdings Ltd, in the British Virgin Islands. An infamous tax haven, British Virgin Islands made headlines after the 2017 Paradise Papers leak exposed offshore activities of some of the world’s most powerful people and companies.
Peacock Property’s address was found to be registered in the name of an offshore agent, Newhaven Corporate Services, registered with the British Virgin Islands’ Financial Services Commission.
Newhaven’s office, located in a modest four-storey yellow building near a central roundabout on James Walter Francis Highway in British Virgin Island’s Road Town, serves as a postal office box for other offshore companies too, according to the 2017 Paradise Paper leaks.
In 2015, Newhaven Corporate was penalised with a fine of USD 25,000 under BVI’s money laundering laws “for failing to properly engage in or undertake customer due diligence” and “for failing to adopt relevant measures or additional measures or checks in non-face to face business relationships.”
Cleaning the slate
Alam nominated Ong Lay Kim, a Singaporean national with no discernible online presence that The Daily Star could find as the sole director of Wilkinson after he removed his name from the Singaporean company.
Alam’s name cannot also be found anywhere in the documents of Hotel Ibis Singapore Novena, the widely-publicised 2019 purchase by his company for USD 126 million.
Filings with the Singaporean authorities made by the hotel show that it is owned by a string of paper companies, all existing in the offices of the law firm mentioned above – and the ultimate owner is an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands.
The hotel is – and has been – owned by a company called Canopus II Pte Ltd since 2013, but the company’s current address is the same as Wilkinson’s, down to the unit number.
Canopus’s sole shareholder is a BVI-based company called Hazel International Pte Ltd, also registered at Wilkinson’s office address. Hazel was set up just three months before its sale to Alam-controlled company in June 2019, according to documents obtained from Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority.
In addition to being a tax haven, the BVI is a secrecy jurisdiction, and companies are not legally obliged to name their shareholders or directors on any official filings.
Countries in the Caribbean islands do not usually go after shell companies, because they want the money to circulate within their system, said Ahsan H Mansur, Executive Director of Policy Research Institute.
“They do not need the tax. They need the investment. So, they can offer tax exemptions. But we need our taxes, and by taking the money out of the country, they [money launderers] are depriving our country of taxes,” said Mansur, also former chairman of BRAC Bank.
He noted that this needs to be stopped at the source, for example, by not allowing these people to own banks.
The puppet director
Alam brought “Casino kingpin” Shahedul Huq on the board of his Singaporean company on October 25, 2012.
At the time, Shahedul was a director of Dhaka-based Union Bank, owned partly by S Alam Group. Alam’s son Ahsanul Alam was Union Bank’s chairman until mid-June 2023, when he became chairman of Islami Bank, where S Alam Group has significant stakes. The junior Alam, 28, is also a current director of S Alam Group.
Shahedul was a director both at Union Bank and Wilkinson until 2018.
During this period, Reliance Finance, an S Alam Group-owned Bangladeshi company now renamed Aviva Finance, received placements worth more than Tk 2,866 crore from Union Bank, according to Union Bank’s financial reports.
Placements are the sale of securities or bonds to investors to raise capital.
Following media reports late last year exposing how S Alam Group had been borrowing money from Islamic banks it has significant stakes in, Bangladesh Bank found that majority of Union Bank’s total disbursement went to 300 local shell companies, or companies that exist only on paper, Bangla daily Prothom Alo reported at the time.
During the 2019 drives against illegal casinos, the Anti-Corruption Commission identified Shahedul among those using gambling dens to launder dirty money – and he was given the popular moniker of “Casino Shahedul”.
In November last year, a Dhaka court sentenced him to five years in a case over possessing Tk 32 crore in illegal wealth. Shahedul fled the country and never showed up before the court, ACC investigators said.
Open data from American voter records show that Shahedul and his wife Sarina Tamanna Huq are registered voters in Canton, Michigan, and have properties there.
Tale of two homes
Records obtained from the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore show that Alam and his wife owned a 12,260 square feet residential property in Novena, central Singapore, until 2021.
The asset’s rental value was USD 570,000 in 2018, the earliest year the property could be linked to Alam. Then in 2022, a Singaporean trust – Zico Trust Ltd – became its legal owner.
Zico Trust’s website states that the benefits of setting up a trust include confidentiality and wealth protection. “Trusts can be established offshore (outside of the settlor’s home country) and privately, thereby ensuring confidentiality of the settlor,” said the website.
It adds, “Wealth protection is a major advantage of private trusts. Since the trustee is the legal owner of the assets, the settlor relinquishes his rights. In most cases, this ensures a form of protection against creditors, bankruptcy, exchange controls, hostile governmental authorities etc.”
The couple owned a second home in Singapore until 2023, when the ownership was transferred to another trust called Padang Trust Singapore Pte Ltd.
Singapore abolished estate duty in 2008. So, the income distribution of capital from Singapore trusts are exempt from tax and successors of a Singaporean trust can be included as beneficiaries without any estate duty.
UNDER ACC SCANNER
Capital flight has long been a global problem, with many big corporations and high-profile individuals running offshore businesses to evade high taxes at home. As for Bangladesh, between 2009 and 2018 the country lost USD 8.28 billion, nearly three times the cost of the Metro Rail Line 6 (Uttara to Motijheel), to illicit money outflow every year, according to an estimate by Washington-based think-tank Global Financial Integrity.
In the wake of mounting allegations of capital flight from Bangladesh, the government offered an amnesty in FY 2022-23, allowing Bangladeshi nationals to bring back their undeclared money from abroad by paying a flat 7 percent tax. The government has withdrawn the amnesty this year.
When S Alam’s Singaporean empire was expanding and changing hands in 2020-21, different media, including English daily New Age, reported how S Alam Group had been borrowing thousands of crores from Islami Bank and other Shariah-based banks in Bangladesh.
After media reports in 2022 unearthed how his companies were securing one questionable loan after another, the High Court ordered the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit of BB, the Anti-Corruption Commission and the Criminal Investigation Department to investigate the loan scams.
In a suo moto rule on December 4, 2022, the HC asked the respondents to explain why “the failure and inaction of the respondents in taking appropriate legal steps and actions against the entities and persons who have misappropriated and laundered a huge amount of money from the Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd. and other banks taking loans in the name of fake, fabricated and non-existent companies/entities using various unethical mechanisms and massive irregularities as mentioned and disclosed in different newspaper reports, shall not be declared illegal.”
The court also asked the respondents to take action against the wrong-doers.
The HC order reached the ACC on April 4 this year.
“We remain vigilant about money laundering. Currently we are investigating Islami Bank’s lending,” said Md Khurshid Alam Khan, panel lawyer for the ACC.
মাসুদ করিম - ১৪ আগস্ট ২০২৩ (৩:৪৭ পূর্বাহ্ণ)
HC refuses to recall its probe order against S Alam Group
https://today.thefinancialexpress.com.bd/metro-news/hc-refuses-to-recall-its-probe-order-against-s-alam-group-1691944327
The High Court on Sunday refused to entertain an appeal for recalling its August 6 order that had directed the authorities concerned to conduct inquiry into the allegations against S Alam Group owner Mohammad Saiful Alam regarding the transfer and investment of huge amount of money abroad without permission from the Bangladesh Bank.
Barrister Ajmalul Hossain, a counsel for S Alam Group, placed a verbal appeal before the HC bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Khizir Hayat that had issued the order and rule on a Suo motu (on its own motion) move.
The bench told Ajmalul that its order has already been signed and therefore, there is no scope for recalling it, said Anti-Corruption Commission lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan, who was present at the courtroom during the proceedings.
Advocate Mohammad Saifullah Mamun, another lawyer for S Alam Group, said they would now move a formal application before the HC against its August 6 ruling.
Verbal petition came just three days after S Alam served a legal notice on the government and four national dailies essentially demanding that these newspapers publish no news on him or his business operations.
On August 6, the same High Court bench directed the authorities concerned to conduct inquiry into the allegations against S Alam Group owner Mohammad Saiful Alam regarding the transfer and investment of huge amount of money abroad without permission from the Bangladesh Bank.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), the Bangladesh Financial Intelligent Unit (BFIU) and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Police have been asked to comply with the direction. The organizations have to submit inquiry report to the HC within two months.
The High Court bench passed the order after considering a report published in an English daily on August 4 under the headline “S Alam’s Aladdin’s Lamp”.
Supreme Court lawyer Syed Sayedul Haque Suman placed the newspaper report before the HC bench seeking necessary directives. Lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan on behalf of the ACC and Deputy Attorney General Md Saifuddin Khaled representing the state were also present in the court.
According to the published report, S Alam Group owner Saiful Alam has built a business empire in Singapore worth at least about $1 billion, although there is no record of him taking any permission from Bangladesh Bank to invest or transfer any funds abroad.
The Bangladesh central bank has so far allowed 17 companies to invest outside the country, and this Chattogram-based business giant is not on that list.
https://twitter.com/urumurum/status/1687360277644455936
মাসুদ করিম - ২১ আগস্ট ২০২৩ (৩:২৩ পূর্বাহ্ণ)
If Sheikh Hasina loses January election, Bangladesh could face prolonged political and economic instability
https://frontline.thehindu.com/world-affairs/sheikh-hasina-awami-league-us-china-january-election-bangladesh-terrorism-economic-south-asia/article67175717.ece
Departure of Awami League from power would not only worry India but also raise concerns about regional unrest and violence in South Asia.
Pressure is mounting on India to bail Bangladesh out from a US-imposed political crisis that is shrinking Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s space to manoeuvre and encouraging political opponents, particularly Islamist fundamentalist outfits, to put her in a corner in the run-up to the country’s parliamentary election scheduled for January 2024.
The Sheikh Hasina government is perhaps India’s closest and only reliable partner in a neighbourhood fraught with anti-Indian feelings and shifting loyalties. Although India has traditionally been the acknowledged “big power” in South Asia, in recent years that position has been seriously challenged by China, whose interest and footprint in the region are increasing with each passing day.
Meanwhile, the Joe Biden administration in the US has announced a series of punitive measures to check Bangladesh’s “democratic backsliding” and ensure the parliamentary election is free and fair. In addition to the threat of imposing visa sanctions against anyone who engages in election rigging, the US State Department has imposed sanctions on a number of serving and retired officials of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a paramilitary force that has been accused of helping Sheikh Hasina’s party, the Awami League, win past elections. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister since 2009, has been accused of manipulating elections and intimidating political opponents to pave the way for her unchallenged authority and successive victories that have made her the longest serving leader in the country.
She has maintained that elections in Bangladesh have always been free and fair. But the US and European nations have put pressure on her to rein in supporters, officials, and government agencies and allow all political parties to participate in elections without fear. This became evident during a recent byelection in Dhaka, when an attack on an opposition party candidate by Awami League supporters led the EU to issue a strongly worded statement criticising the government.
Biden has omitted Bangladesh from the summit of democracies organised by him in past years, although he invited Pakistan and India along with other countries. His administration also ignored Hasina when she visited Washington for a World Bank meeting in May.
Sheikh Hasina, who believes Biden is out to destroy Bangladesh’s democracy, once told her parliament that “America can throw out any government in the world, particularly if it is a Muslim nation”.
US-Imposed crisis squeezes Prime Minister Hasina political leverage
The US’ latest stand has rejuvenated her opponents. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the main opposition party, is upbeat and has been holding rallies and meetings attacking the government. Other organisations, like the Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist organisation that maintains close links with Pakistan and collaborated with the Pakistani army during the country’s liberation struggle, are also feeling encouraged by the US position. During Sheikh Hasina’s tenure, many Jamaat leaders were hanged for alleged “war crimes”. The country’s Supreme Court cancelled the organisation’s registration and prevented it from contesting elections. But recently, Jamaat leaders organised a massive rally in Dhaka, its first show of strength in 10 years.
“If elections are free and fair, the Awami League will be decimated,” said Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, a standing committee member of the BNP. Indeed, the possibility of the BNP ruling Bangladesh with the support of the Jamaat-e-Islami and other fundamentalist outfits has set off alarm bells in Dhaka and New Delhi.
India’s crucial ally
For nearly a decade, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sheikh Hasina have built a strong relationship of trust and confidence that has served both countries and the region well. Sheikh Hasina’s political acumen in ignoring the anti-Muslim jibes of BJP leaders, often directed at Bangladesh, has successfully insulated bilateral relations and ensured that they remain strong.
Awami League parliamentarian Saber Hossain Chowdhury said: “The India-Bangladesh partnership has expanded from trade and investment to connectivity and security in which people-to-people contact has played an important role as catalyst.” He added that the two governments had created a win-win situation and rely on each other for growth, development, and regional stability.
The success of Indo-Bangladesh ties has allowed Delhi to build a case for how a constructive relationship with India could also benefit other neighbours.
India played a pivotal role in the Liberation war that led to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, but over the the decades much of that sheen in the bilateral ties had worn off. A series of regimes in Bangladesh actively encouraged anti-India forces to use Bangladeshi territory to carry out their fight against India. After coming to power, Sheikh Hasina stabilised the relationship and drove out the anti-Indian elements from the country. But New Delhi and Dhaka fear that the Biden administration’s latest moves against Bangladesh may jeopardise the relationship.
The US lays a lot of emphasis on democracy and human rights in its foreign relations. However, its track record in promoting them has remained dubious. It has often called out countries for democratic backsliding but overlooked the same fault in others when its strategic interests were involved. So, the moot point is why it has chosen to accuse Bangladesh of democratic backsliding.
Michael Kugelman, director of the Washington-based Asia Institute, said that Bangladesh was not strategically so significant that the US could not risk rocking the boat. Bangladesh is a key partner but not a key strategic bet in the US scheme, and this gives the administration the leeway to press ahead on rights and democracy issues.
Economic transformation under Sheikh Hasina
It is widely acknowledged that Sheikh Hasina has transformed the country’s economy. Bangladesh, with a population of 17 crore, has recorded an annual growth rate of 7 per cent in the past decade and its social indicators are also better than most of its South Asian neighbours.
The World Bank has said that Bangladesh has made enormous strides in the past 50 years—from one of the poorest nations at birth, it is now one of the fastest growing economies. In 2022, it sought and got a $4.7 billion loan from the IMF to tide it over a crisis created by disruptions in food, fuel, and fertilizer supplies following the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. By 2026, Bangladesh is expected to become a developing country.
In terms of geopolitics, Sheikh Hasina has refused to take sides in the ongoing power struggle among the leading powers for control of the Indian Ocean—Bangladesh is located at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, part of the Indian Ocean—an important transit zone through which an estimated 80 per cent of the global maritime trade passes. Bangladesh’s Indo-Pacific policy calls for the establishment of “rules-based multilateral systems” to promote “equitable and sustainable development” while maintaining equidistance from the US and China.
However, in recent years Bangladesh has emerged as a battleground for India and China, with each seeking to establish its influence in the country. The prevailing tensions at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) have also hardened their positions further. The US stepping in to assert itself has complicated this situation further, with the US-China rivalry casting its long shadow on Bangladesh.
Shahab Enam Khan, a political scientist in Dhaka, said: “Bangladesh has substantial trade interests in the US, which is among the big markets for its garments.” He added: “The US’ visa restrictions can significantly strain Bangladesh’s financial connectivity and labour mobility.”
China moves closer
The strain in the Bangladesh-US relationship has allowed China to move closer to Sheikh Hasina. In June, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a statement: “We firmly support Bangladesh in safeguarding its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.” China also said it supports Bangladesh in upholding independent domestic and foreign policies and pursuing a development path that suits its national realities.
But the emerging situation is seen as a double whammy by India. Its growing closeness with the US has raised expectations that it will intervene with the Biden administration on Sheikh Hasina’s behalf. And China’s decision to stand with Dhaka has now made it imperative that Delhi uses its influence with Washington to bail out Sheikh Hasina. If the US fails to oblige, it will be India’s loss.
India fears it will face a hostile regime in Bangladesh if Sheikh Hasina goes. However, China has maintained close relations with the BNP, whose leadership is also close to Pakistan. Hence, there is little chance of China’s interests in Bangladesh being jeopardised if the BNP comes to power.
Avinash Paliwal, a senior lecturer and South Asian strategic affairs specialist at London’s SOAS University, told Frontline that India’s main challenge is that Sheikh Hasina is facing serious anti-incumbency and the BNP is gaining political momentum. “If it sweeps the election, this challenge will be more pressing for New Delhi,” he added.
Several experts said that the real reason behind the US opposition to Sheikh Hasina was her closeness to China and not the so-called democratic backsliding. “The recent Chinese statement against US sanctions is a culmination of a longer geopolitical struggle between the big two,” said Paliwal.
Shahab Enam Khan emphasises that China is at the centre of the ongoing debate. China’s economic footprint in Bangladesh has been increasing since 2013, all the more after President Xi Jinping visited the country in 2016. Since joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Bangladesh has got over $38 billion of investment from China. China is also its largest trade partner; the Sino-Bangladesh bilateral trade is currently worth $25 billion. In comparison, Bangladesh’s trade with the US is around $10 billion and with India it is around $18 billion.
However, the mainstay of China’s bilateral relations with Bangladesh is based on the defence partnership. It began in the 1980s and has grown substantially in subsequent years. Today, China accounts for 72 per cent of Bangladesh’s defence supplies. Dhaka is also the second biggest export destination for Chinese arms after Pakistan.
China’s growing presence in Bangladesh’s defence sector is a major cause for worry for both the US and India. At India’s insistence, Sheikh Hasina refused to allow China to build the Sonadia deep-sea port, scrapping the project despite pursuing it for years. She has now invited Japan to fund a deep-sea port in Matarbari, near Cox’s Bazar, near Chittagong.
In March, Sheikh Hasina inaugurated Bangladesh’s first submarine base, Pekua, near the Kutubdia channel in the Bay of Bengal, built at a cost of $1.21 billion. It will serve as home to two refurbished Chinese submarines that Bangladesh purchased in 2016. Although Chinese experts will train Bangladeshi personnel to operate the base and the submarines, Dhaka has been careful to clarify that it was not for the use of the Chinese navy. Since 2010, Dhaka has bought arms worth $2.37 billion from China, but only $123 million worth of weapons from the US.
American interests in Bangladesh
The US is keen to develop stronger defence ties with Bangladesh given the country’s geographical location. It has supplied Dhaka frigates and military transport aircraft. It wants the government to sign two foundational agreements—the General Security of Military Agreement and the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement—that will enhance mutual defence cooperation. However, Bangladesh has not been in any hurry. The US has said that the agreements will help forge stronger defence ties and expand opportunities for defence-related trade, information sharing, and military-to-military cooperation.
The US, according to Paliwal, believes that Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarianism made Bangladesh more susceptible to China making steady inroads in the country, and the US administration thinks that the BNP will be able to contain Chinese influence. “The idea is not to roll back Beijing’s presence in toto, but to limit it,” he added. In July, Uzra Zeya, US Under Secretary for Democracy and Human Rights, met Sheikh Hasina with a delegation of senior State Department officials. During her conversation with Sheikh Hasina, she praised Dhaka for hosting a million Rohingya refugees over the past years, but she also stressed the need for holding free and fair elections.
The Asia Institute’s Kugelman said: “The US is genuinely interested in a strong partnership with Dhaka. But it wants to give a strong incentive to Bangladesh to take all measures to ensure a free and fair election, so that it doesn’t need to reconsider its ties with Dhaka.”
By most accounts if Sheikh Hasina loses in the election, Bangladesh may struggle to find political and economic stability for several years and may once again become a hotbed of terrorist and fundamentalist forces. The Awami League’s departure would be a cause of concern not only for India but for the entire region if it ushers in another spell of unrest and violence in South Asia.
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মাসুদ করিম - ২৯ আগস্ট ২০২৩ (৫:৪৫ অপরাহ্ণ)
Legendary poet Padma Shri Jayanta Mahapatra dies
https://kalingatv.com/state/legendary-poet-padma-shri-jayanta-mahapatra-dies/
Legendary poet Padma Shri Jayanta Mahapatra passed away this evening at the age of 95 while undergoing treatment at SCB Medical College and Hospital.
Legendary poet Padma Shri Jayanta Mahapatra passed away this evening at the age of 95. He was undergoing treatment at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.
According to reports, the celebrated poet was admitted at the ICU of the medicine department of the hospital as he was suffering from Pneumonia and kidney related ailments since long. He recovered from his sickness but died at around 9 PM today following a heart attack.
Meanwhile, a pall of gloom descended on the poet and writers fraternity in Odisha following the death of Mahapatra. Several important people from different sections of life rushed to the hospital to pay their rich tributes to the deceased poet.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, other politicians, Kandhamal MP and founder of KIIT and KISS Achyuta Samanta, Kadambini editor Dr. Itirani Samanta, and many others condoled Mahapatra’s death and prayed for his souls to rest in peace.
The Indian government had conferred him with the Padma Shri in 2009 for his contribution to literature. However, he returned the award in 2015 with the aim to protest the growing “moral asymmetry” in the country.
Jayanta Mahapatra, who is one of the greatest Odia litterateurs of all time, was the first Indian poet to win a Sahitya Akademi award for English poetry in 1981.
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